The Texas Firearms Festival: A Look Back, A Look Forward!

Last year was the Texas Firearms Festival’s debut. It was a hit! More than 2000 shooters journeyed to Best of the West Shooting Sports in Liberty Hill to sample firearms from dozens of manufacturers. In our exit poll, ninety percent of visitors said they’d be back for 2015. But we didn’t rest on our ballistic laurels. We listened to our ticket holders’ every suggestion and worked hard to solve every issue, from check-in troubles, to line length at the rifle range, to the insufficient number of retailers hawking their wares. For 2015 . . .

We’re no longer using computers at check-in. All you have to do is present your ID. A check-in person will get your color-coded wrist band from a packet. Done.

We’ve split the SB-Tactical Rifle Range into two. There will be two separate lines, entrances and exits. We’ve also made sure that manufacturers bring multiple examples of the same gun (to keep things moving quickly). We’ve trained our staff to recommend alternatives if the lines get too long. (TrackingPoint is not with us this year, which will also help.)

We moved The Range at Austin Retail Village from BoTW’s outskirts to the main range. This year, we’ll have 50 – count ’em 50! – retailers selling their goods and services, from knives to T-shirts. We’ll also have a tent with a shooting simulator and tables where you can schmooze with Second Amendment groups.

We also moved the Sportsman’s Finest gun sales tent to the main range. They’re ready, willing and able to sell you a wide range of firearms from many of the main exhibitors; they’ll offer some of the guns at a wallet-tempting Festival discount (which we can’t detail before the day due to manufacturers’ relationships with their dealers).

This year, we’re selling 3k total shooting tickets, 1500 per day. That’s it. No more. We’re confident that we can offer all our ticket holders a chance to shoot guns to their heart’s content.

But wait! That’s not all!

For 2015, the Texas Firearms Festival has added new names: IWI, STI, Blaser and Kel-Tec for example. We’ve also added demo trucks from DSG distributors and HPR ammo. Last year, the pistol range was closed. This year, the Texas State Rifle Association has teamed-up with the man-marker cartridge folks at UTM to open the range for free, non-lethal ammo instruction for new shooters.

We upgraded VIP tickets. Once again, VIP ticket holders get an hour of VIP-only range time, lunch and refreshments ( in the National Shooting Sports Foundation-sponsored VIP tent). This year, VIPs get FastPass access to the front of any line. And a free shuttle around the Festival.

To make the 2015 Texas Firearms Festival more family-friendly – as last year’s ticket holders suggested – we’ve added lower-cost Non-Shooter tickets for significant others. Children 10-and-under are now free!

In short, the 2015 Texas Firearms Festival – November 14 and 15 at Best of the West Shooting Sports – is bigger and better than before. As I mentioned (about a billion times), Shooter and VIP tickets are limited. We’ve already sold a third. If you want to come to America’s premier “Come and Shoot it!” event – and I can’t think of a single reason why you wouldn’t – we recommend you buy your tickets now, before prices go up (October 1) and tickets sell out.

Click here to buy your tickets to the 2015 Texas Firearms Festival. Any questions? Call 401 835 5054 for an immediate answer. But when it comes to shooting a wider range of the latest and greatest guns from some of America’s premier firearms manufacturers there is only one answer: The Texas Firearms Festival! See you there!

comments

TrackingPoint not being there may make lines easier, but it won’t make one of my sons happy, although we understand it’s not your fault. He had never engaged a target beyond 100 yards in his 39 years, and he hit the target 3 of 3 times at 750 yards. That was a thrill darn near that of people who fire a gun for the first time. An amazing system, hope it survives.